NEWS
Green Charter Edito: Beyond the footprint

Over the past months, I have travelled across Europe as MIOB’s Green expert, visiting the festivals that make up the MIOB network. Different countries, different teams, different realities. My role was not to tick boxes or hand out grades, but to ask simple questions: Why do we still do this? Is it really necessary? Could we do it differently?

Every festival is at a different stage of its journey. Progress depends on local infrastructures, national contexts and available resources. There is no single recipe for sustainability. What impressed me most was the willingness to question habits. Again and again, I met teams ready to rethink long-standing practices, share their successes and learn from one another. That, to me, is the real strength of the Green Charter: not standardisation, but collective intelligence. These efforts matter not only because they reduce the environmental footprint of festivals, but because they inspire others. Every edition demonstrates that cultural events can be organised differently. The ideas tested at festivals often travel beyond them, onto film sets, into production offices and across the industry.

By leading through example, festivals are already creating change.

But I believe we can go even further. Once we have reduced our footprint as much as we reasonably can, what comes next? We could always do less. Travel less. Gather less. But festivals exist because bringing people together matters. Perhaps the next frontier is not only reducing our negative impact, but increasing our positive one. This was also part of our work throughout the year. Beyond environmental practices, we looked at the conversations festivals were already creating through their programmes and industry activities. Many were already exploring these questions in their own way. Together, we reflected on what seemed to resonate most, how these initiatives could reach beyond the circle of those already engaged, and how reflections on cinema's role in society could become a more natural part of the festival experience rather than being confined to dedicated "impact" events. Every festival gathers the people who will create the stories watched by millions: filmmakers, producers, writers, distributors and programmers.

This gives festivals a unique opportunity—not to tell creators what to make, but to open conversations.

What futures are we portraying? What relationship with nature do we normalise? What lifestyles, values and forms of diversity do our stories celebrate? How can cinema help us imagine desirable futures, while preserving complete artistic freedom? These questions should not be confined to a single sustainability panel attended by the already convinced. Just as environmental responsibility has become embedded in the organisation of festivals, reflections on storytelling can be woven naturally into programming, industry talks and creative exchanges. Culture changes society not only through what it says, but through what it makes imaginable.

The MIOB network has shown how collaboration can reduce environmental impact. Perhaps its next challenge is even more exciting: helping cinema increase its positive impact on society.

That may be the most powerful contribution a film festival can make.

Agathe Duliscouet works at the intersection of cinema, storytelling and sustainability.

As Global Green Expert for the MIOB network of European film festivals, she supports festivals in reducing their environmental impact while fostering the exchange of best practices and innovative solutions across the network. Her work focuses on the power of storytelling to reshape our relationship with nature, wellbeing and consumption.